Web 2.0

I really enjoyed the video we watched in class on web 2.0. I felt the speaker had great ideas that had not occurred to me. I, like the television producer he talked about in the video, have always subconsciously thought of the internet and similar things as a fad and television as a mainstay, but he brought up a great point about it. Why would people continue to choose a media where they are acted upon, instead of a media they act upon and share, like on the web.

I have noticed that other forms of popular media are now being put on the internet. We can listen to radio stations on the internet, we can watch television on the internet, we watch movies on the internet. Really, if you just have a computer in your house and a high speed cable hook up, you really don't need any other technological device. You can even talk "on the phone" online, or attend school and business meetings.

Because of this tread, is it fair to say that the internet has been one of the most important technological developments in recent history? The most important?

Assessments

In chapter 8 of Dick & Carey, I was interested in what the authors had to say concerning learner assessments. The authors, maintain that while learners assessments are important and should be utilized, they should be done thoughtfully, as to not discourage learners who feel they didn't do well on the assessment. I couldn't agree more. As a student, when I had a quiz that was needlessly made overly difficult, I felt discouraged and afraid I would fail in the class. Though I never did actually fail in the class, I felt frustrated the whole semester! I believe I would have been much more successful and class would have been much more enjoyable had some teachers thoughtfully considered what the point of their assessments were. I am not arguing that assessments should not be challenging, but they should be manageable. I think every university has those teachers that start out the first class by saying, "don't expect to get an A on a test in my class". My question is why? Why wouldn't you write a test that your students can 100% succeed at? By following Dick & Carey's suggestions on how to create effective assessments, I believe Instructional Designers will help learners feel less anxiety and experience more success.